A colleague of mine recently climbed all the way up Mount Kilimanjaro. I’m super proud of her for setting that goal and actually achieving it.
The outcome of all her planning, effort, and hard work is that she can now proudly say she reached the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro.
She didn’t celebrate the output. She didn’t dwell on the 6 days she spent hiking to the top or the estimated 70,000 steps she took along the way. The outcome was clear, standing at the peak of Kilimanjaro.
We often find ourselves focusing on the wrong things. It doesn’t matter if you send out 100 emails a day if none of them get a click. It doesn’t matter if you publish 100 social media posts if none of them convert a customer.
Measure the outcome, not the output.